Emerging Leaders 2008: Group O

Project

Design and conduct a survey on how interlibrary loan operations are staffed in different size and types of libraries.

Description

Design and conduct a survey focused on how interlibrary loan operations are staffed in different sizes and types of libraries. A possible part 2 (or 3) of the project could be to design a "databank" for the survey results that would allow interested persons to search for data relevant to their library environment.

This project is a natural follow-up to previous work done within STARS and other organizations, including a survey conducted earlier this year by the STARS Task Force on Qualifications for Interlibrary Loan Operations Management, contact persons: David Larsen, U of Chicago Library, and Susan Lieberthal, Stonybrook U Library. Information re: staffing in research libraries is also included in Assessing ILL/DD Services: New Cost Effective Alternatives, Mary E. Jackson, with Bruce Kingma and Tom Delaney.

Expected Outcomes

The results of the survey will be available to libraries via RUSA web page and would
provide useful planning information.

The Survey

The survey http://tinyurl.com/23va3e was posted online on April 4, 2008 and available until May 5, 2008. The survey was advertised via the listservs ARIE-L, Circplus, Clio, Doclibs, Docline-l, FISC-L, ILL-L, LIS-ILL, ILLiad-L, RAPID-L, Stars, and wa_ill. It was also advertised via direct email to CSU and WSU staff as well as via a personal account on Twitter. Reminder emails were sent to ARIE-L and ILLiad-L on April 29.
The email sent to solicit responses was as follows:

Interlibrary Loan Staffing Survey
Dear Colleagues,
Are you involved in interlibrary loan services in your library? We are a team of ALA Emerging Leaders involved in a RUSA-sponsored survey project. We are seeking your feedback on how interlibrary loan operations are staffed in your library.
Simply click on this URL: http://tinyurl.com/23va3e
Thank you for taking a few minutes to give us your expert opinion. The survey results will be presented at the ALA Emerging Leader Poster Session in ALA 2008 Annual Conference, Anaheim, CA.
We would appreciate your response to the survey no later than Monday, May 5th, 2008. If you have any questions, please contact Bethany Sewell at bethany.sewell@du.edu, Linda Shippert at lshippert@wsu.edu, and Ying Zhong at yzhong@csub.edu. Thank you!

Data Analysis

May 6-31, the data collected in the Survey was examined by the three group members separately, and then pulled together. We then discussed what to report, both on the poster and in a co-written article.

Tentative subjects for the poster included:
-- Group O and our teamwork
-- Timeline of the Project
-- Survey results
-- People's comments on the project
-- What we learned from this project

The Poster

We drew from our analysis of survey results to create a poster which covered all the major topics. It was refined between June 1-June 20.

Group Members

Linda Shippert: Linda is interim head of the Health Sciences Library at Washington State University. She was recently elected ALA Councilor-at-large for 2008/2011 and Networking Director of the ALA New Members Round Table for 2008/2010, and will co-chair the ACRL Science & Technology Section Continuing Education Committee for 2008/2010. Linda’s other research interests include emerging technologies and ways to help librarians become more comfortable using them.

Ying Zhong: Ying is a senior Assistant librarian at Walter W. Stiern Library in California State University, Bakersfield. Ying's job responsibilities include teaching, reference, departments liaison, and collection development. Ying is also working as the Web Service Coordinator in the library. Ying graduated from University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign in 2005. Her research interests were Reference Services, Information Economics, and Services Assessments and Evaluations.

Bethany Sewell: As the Access Services Librarian, Bethany leads the Access Services Team of the Penrose Library, which includes Circulation, Interlibrary Loan, Reserves, and Stacks Maintenance. Bethany received her undergraduate degrees in Philosophy and the Visual Arts at the University of Northern Colorado in Greeley. Following her undergraduate work, she moved to Indiana to pursue her masters' degrees in both Art history and Library and Information Sciences at Indiana University.

Team Roles (as originally defined)

Bethany – identify award recipients, look into requirements of human research studies for ALA; keep in touch with the mentor and the ALA contact person; write up the findings to present at annual and to present to RUSA
Ying – data analysis; lead the poster project
Linda – create survey, poster; update the wiki/blog with team progress each month; monitor the work of the team to make sure that each member contributes and completes assignments

Actual Team Roles

Bethany - led the writing of the prose component
Ying - led the creation of the poster
Linda - led the creation of the survey, maintained the wiki page
All team members contributed to each part of the process, from brainstorming survey questions through data analysis and preparation of the results for dissemination.